Hacked Off chief Brian Cathcart in row over secret donors

Brian Cathcart was urged to reveal his backersPeter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Visitors to a literary festival rounded on the founder of Hacked Off when he refused to identify the financial backers of the lobby group that helped to draft Britain’s new press law.

Audience members shouted “Answer the question!” at Brian Cathcart, the group’s executive director, when he was urged at a debate to unmask those who were footing the campaign’s bills.

Instead of naming his own secret backers, he launched an attack on the financial probity of some newspaper owners. His criticism was later condemned as misleading.

Hacked Off has repeatedly defied calls from Parliament and Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, to identify its donors. The pressure group joined negotiations at Westminster when the Opposition Leader,…